Haryana Community Forestry Project

The Overall Objectives of the project are:

Overall Objective Concerning "Natural Environment"

Overall Objective Concerning "Land Fertility"

Overall Objective Concerning " Sustainable Management of Natural Resources"

• Project Results Concerning "Empowerment of Disadvantaged Groups"

• Project Results Concerning " Organizational development of VRMC, HRMS and Tree Growers Associations"

• Project Results Concerning "Management of Dune Areas affected by Wind Erosion"

• Project Results Concerning "Management of Community Land"

• Project Results Concerning "Water Harvesting From Micro Watersheds"

• Project Results Concerning "Development of Village Tree Groves"
• Project Results Concerning "Ago Forestry Development on Marginal and Small Farms"

• Project Results Concerning "Development of Poplar Plantations on Prime Agricultural Land"

• Project Results Concerning "Management of Kitchen Gardens and Homestead Plots"

• Project Results Concerning "Promotion of Energy Efficient Cooking Stoves"

• Project Results Concerning "Promotion of Energy Efficient Crematoria"

The Project Stakeholders at the Community level are:

• Women in general and women heads of households in particular who have a stake in biomass production for fuel and fodder;

• Scheduled castes who generally are landless and depend on traditional low paid occupations;

• Households dependent on degraded lands and sand dune areas;

• Cultivators who are willing to take up poplar plantations, preference being given to marginal and small farmers;

• All potential and actual resident users of common lands;

• Communities living in degraded and drought prone areas bordering and within Shivalik hills.

There are different project component related to forestry and none forestry activities:

The various project components that are aimed at reversing the process of degradation through restoring vegetal cover will focus on the needs of the community for fuel, fodder, timber, fruit and other minor products on a sustainable basis. The project intervention will mainly focus on degraded wastelands, village common lands, farmlands, homestead plots, institutional lands, riverbanks and areas unsuited for agriculture including private lands. With specific emphasis on plantations and their management ,the project will deal holistically with the interrelated elements  of land, water, trees, crops, livestock and livelihood systems of people.

The project's components and  physical targets  are given below:-

- Establishment of village woodlots over 7400 ha of Panchayat lands ,village common lands (jointly owned by several villagers), institutional lands and river banks.

- Planting of 9,300 ha of moving sand dunes (Sand dune fixation), both on common and private lands.

- Establishment of 200 ha of tree groves at 2,500 sites.

-Development of micro-watersheds through construction of 18 water harvesting dams.

- Farm Forestry Plantations over 5300 ha of private farmland belonging to small and marginal farmers.

- Planting  of  Poplar on 5,000 ha of prime agricultural land  in four northeastern districts.

- Establishment of 100 cluster nurseries managed by women, at least one per cluster of 3-4 villages, besides 10 units of modern nurseries and two nurseries for poplar planting.

-Creation of employment and support for income generating activities for women, disadvantaged groups and the educated unemployed.

- More efficient and reduced use of fuel wood and dung for domestic cooking and in crematoria by developing and introducing improved energy saving devices.

To strengthen community capacity, the following initiatives are in-built in the project:-

Entry Point Activities:- These activities  will mainly  be self-help activities with some limited support from the project; upto Rs. 15,000 per village.

Chetna Kendras:-  It is proposed to establish one Chetna Kendra (Awareness Center), in each project village having a woodlot of at least 10 ha. These kendras could be the venue for public discussion related to community forestry and other projects and activities, training, awareness generation, literacy classes and income generating activities. It will be the meeting place of  Village Resource Management Committees (VRMCs) and provide a physical focal point for the community, facilitating the development of  a sustainable resource management institution.

Resource Management Fund:- While the community is to be encouraged to assume responsibility for the management of plantations, initial  seed money of Rs. 30,000/- (increasing with size of woodlot) would be given by the project to each VRMC for creation of a Resource Management Fund to be managed by them.

Link Workers:-    The link workers are the locally recruited Para-extension short term contractual staff, who will assist the project in community development, micro-planning and monitoring.

Promotion of Self-Employment through Micro-Enterprises:-

HCFP, adopting a holistic approach, will encourage the development of non-farm activities in project villages, by availing the services of existing institutions and  program. Special efforts  shall be made to ensure promotion of self-employment opportunities through a number of skill based activities, such as vermi-composting, cultivation of medicinal plants, nurseries and traditional crafts such as durry weaving, soap and candle making, pickle making etc.

Energy Efficient Technologies:-

The project  will aim to  reduce  the consumption of fuel wood and cow dung  in target communities by introducing improved domestic cooking stoves.

Other Alternative Energy Resources :-

In conjunction with the Department of Non-Conventional Energy sources, efforts shall be made to introduce alternative energy sources in target villages.

Information Needs

There is  a range of community information needs, within the project, as follows:

* Villagers who would require access to community information system related to management of CPR's, farm tree resources, income generating possibilities, resources and markets, skills needed to manage VRMCs and village revolving fund.

* Extension staff and link workers would require information on different forestry models, community development processes, and communication and media skills;

* Project Management will require information for decision making, planning, monitoring and evaluation through establishment of reporting systems and a Management Information System (MIS)

            The Management Information System (MIS)  for the project will need to cover at least seven types of management information.These relate to basic information needs of various users, e.g. the project steering committee, The European Union, The project management team at the strategic level, the technical management and supervisory level teams, the field extension and operations team, the VRMC members, and micro-project  owners amongst the various stakeholders.

           It is also intended to use Geographical Information System (GIS) in order to monitor project activities, both spatially and temporally, and to produce maps on key project results and activities.